The present Invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Barberry plant, botanically known as Berberis thunbergii, and hereinafter referred to by the name ‘Maria’.
The new Barberry is a product of a planned breeding program conducted by the Inventors in Kuroska, Poland. The objective of the breeding program was to create new Barberry cultivars with new plant forms and unique foliage colors.
The new Barberry originated from an open pollination in 1998 of the Berberis thunbergii cultivar Aurea, not patented, as the female, or seed, parent with an unknown selection of Berberis thunbergii, as the male, or pollen, parent. The cultivar Maria was discovered and selected by the Inventors in 2001 as a single plant from within the progeny of the stated open pollination in a controlled environment in Kuroska, Poland.
Asexual reproduction of the new cultivar by softwood cuttings since 2001 in Kuroska, Poland, has shown that the unique features of this new Barberry are stable and reproduced true to type in successive generations.